Cows get loose after Marion County police chase

OCALA (FOX 13) - A Marion County police chase had the cows running for their lives Wednesday.

Deputies say they spotted a work truck stolen from a business in Manatee County. So they started pursuing it, first down a two-lane county road, then onto smaller country roads that line the pastures and farms of northeast Marion County.

Deputies began to deploy stop sticks on the road, but that's when the driver made an unexpected turn, driving across the bright green fields of a cattle pasture.

The deputies were right behind him, but meanwhile, the cows were apparently getting nervous. A few of them took off, escaping through a fence destroyed earlier during the chase.

A few minutes later, the fleeing driver was forced to a stop after his tires go flat from the stop sticks. So why was he running in the first place?

"I was just giving ya'll something to do,” Gregory Walker said.

Walker is no stranger to the law in Marion County. He has a number of arrests going back quite a few years. One mug shot even shows him in a hospital gown after an injury of some sort following another police chase in 2010.

For now, he’s locked up on $7,000 bond and charged with grand theft and fleeing from law enforcement. The cows were all OK.